Fact Sheet: Artesia Temporary Facility for Adults With Children in Expedited Removal

Release Date:

June 20, 2014

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is in the process of establishing a temporary facility for adults with children in expedited removal on the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center’s (FLETC) Artesia, N.M. campus. This is part of the whole of government response to the urgent humanitarian situation along the Southwest Border and in the Rio Grande Valley specifically.

The FLETC Artesia, N.M., campus was selected as a temporary facility because it offers a more appropriate environment for the care and custody of adults with children and is cost-effective.

This facility will add approximately 700 additional beds for adults with children.

This temporary facility will allow U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to increase its capacity to house and process these apprehended individuals.

This facility is one of several that DHS is looking at to increase our capacity to hold and expedite the removal of the increasing number of adults with children illegally crossing the Southwest Border. Doing so will help ensure more timely and effective removals, and deter others from taking the dangerous journey and illegally crossing into the United States.

The use of this temporary facility at FLETC Artesia is estimated to have minimal or no impact to the ongoing law enforcement training.

ICE is committed to providing safe, secure and humane care to individuals in detention, including adults with children, who are pending completion of their immigration cases. ICE will do everything possible to ensure that the facility meets the applicable legal standards.

The addition of this facility and the government’s response to this urgent humanitarian situation will in no way diminish the existing rights of individuals in removal proceedings under the Immigration and Nationality Act, including access to asylum and other immigration protections.

Individuals, including adults with children, illegally entering the United States are subject to removal and are not eligible for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) or the earned citizenship provisions in the immigration reform bill pending before the Congress. Adults with children should not risk the dangerous journey to illegally enter the United States at the Southwest Border or elsewhere. Too often individuals have tragically perished attempting to cross the border illegally at the hands of criminal smugglers who have no regard for human life.